December 17, 1989

In Short

By JAMES MARCUS

RUNNING WILD
By J. G. Ballard.

ver the last 25 years, the British writer J. G. Ballard has touched a great many stylistic bases, ranging from straight science fiction (''The
Drowned World'') to abrasive experimentalism (''Crash'') to autobiographical realism (''Empire of the Sun''). But regardless of genre, Mr. Ballard's books have tended to share certain
qualities, including a fascination with electronic media, a taste for black-comic paradox and, most of all, an ability to immerse the reader in different fictional worlds. ''Running Wild,'' which is presented as the
forensic diaries of Dr. Richard Greville, a psychiatric adviser to the London police, certainly bears the first two of these trademarks. Greville has been asked to investigate the Pangbourne Massacre, a mysterious tragedy in which the
32 adult residents of an exclusive community 30 miles west of London have been murdered, and their 13 children apparently abducted. Who could have carried out such an atrocity? And why? Greville lists the various theories put forth by
the authorities, in order of escalating absurdity. He watches hours of videotaped evidence and ponders the community's way of life, one in which ''scarcely a minute of the children's lives had not been intelligently
planned.'' Slowly - more slowly, in any case, than most readers - he comes to the conclusion that the assassins were the children themselves. The Pangbourne offspring, he concludes, ''were rebelling against . . . a
despotism of kindness. They killed to free themselves from a tyranny of love and care.'' Really? The assumptions ''Running Wild'' is supposed to challenge, such as the fairy-tale version of family happiness,
haven't been widely accepted for decades. Nor has Mr. Ballard given himself ample space to compensate for his warmed-over concept: the novel's 104 pages immerse us no deeper than the ankles. ''Running Wild''
has its pleasures, but it's J. G. Ballard at his scantiest, his most reduced. What he gives us here is a dream communicated in Morse code.